


Bitter News

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2017, historical crime, seriously don't click the link if you don't want details
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 22:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11564943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: Watson was hoping to distract himself with the newspapers. Written for JWP #20: Time For A Little Research.





	Bitter News

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: I remembered Holmes' quote about the most charming woman he ever knew being a child poisoner, and decided to research famous Victorian female criminals, if there were any. Yeeeesh! If you want to learn more, see the end notes. And absolutely no beta. This was written in a huge rush. You have been warned.
> 
> Author's Notes: Written for JWP #20: Time For a Little Research. Look up something Holmesian/Watsonian you've always wanted to dig into but just haven't had the time, and use that research in today's entry.

An unfortunate end to an otherwise fascinating case – which I may someday relate – left me laid up in the spring of 1896. I had hoped to find some respite from my discomfort in the pages of the newspapers that piled around Holmes’ armchair like drifts of snow. But a quick perusal of the headlines in nearly every paper – and the details revealed in the Times, much less the more sensational publications – left me feeling sicker than I started.  
  
Holmes noticed my distress. “It’s a horrid business,” he sympathized quietly. “Even you and I, hardened as we necessarily are by exposure to war and crime, cannot help but feel it.”  
  
“Those poor children!”   
  
“And those poor mothers,” Holmes added. When I looked at him, surprised, he went on. “True, some might have only wished to rid themselves of a burden they could not support, and did not care much about it otherwise. But even they paid a sum, rather than take one of the darker, more readily available methods of ridding themselves of a child. It seems likely that the majority of those desperate women who answered [Dyer’s](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-39330793) advertisements thought they were securing a better future for their child than they themselves could provide.” He shook his head. “The suffering they must feel now, should they learn about her, must be brutal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 20, 2017. 
> 
> Amelia Dyer was a real person who murdered an unknown number of children - perhaps hundreds of them - and tricked people into paying her to do it. Learn more [here](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-39330793), but be warned, it's not pleasant.


End file.
